Brit Hume, Tiger Woods, and...Me: A Buddhist Response in Mainstream Media

[icymist]

by Ethan Nichtern


Over the past 24 hours I had the opportunity to do two interviews with Rick Sanchez of CNN and Michel Martin of NPR's "Tell Me More," respectively.

The subject was: A Buddhist Response to Brit Hume's claim that Tiger Woods could not find forgiveness and redemption in practicing Buddhism, and therefore should convert to Christianity. Both Mr. Sanchez and Ms. Martin were kind and accommodating and excellent fun to talk to, and hopefully I was coherent enough to offer a little something to the dialogue (Links are provided in the article... icy)

<snip>
1) I do wish, beyond anything, that our media didn't operate on such a quick, soundbyte model, because I think the dialogue between the Christian tradition and Buddhist mindfulness practice is an awesome and important one, and it's so hard to do anything but speak in vagaries in five minute segments.

2) I'm actually not sure that Tiger Woods is a Buddhist. It seems he meditates to help his golf game (I've heard from multiple amateur golfers who practice meditation), and his mother is Buddhist, but whether or not he self-identifies as a practitioner seems murky. Does anyone have a direct quote from the man himself?

3) At their heart, both Christianity and Buddhism are aimed at the alleviation of human suffering. We just ended a decade of A) Intense misunderstanding, hatred, and war among different spiritual traditions and B) Intense and perverse focus on celebrity culture.

[liberal_at_heart]

1. I was thinking about the differences myself today

Christian forgiveness and Buddhist mindfulness accomplish the same goal they just go about it differently. The end goal is to alleviate the individual of suffering. In Buddhism if you are mindful of the offense and anger and you let it go, then you alleviate yourself from suffering. In Christianity if you forgive then you alleviate yourself from suffering. My dad hates it when I compare the similarities between Christianity and Buddhism. His response is always but Buddha doesn't promise you ever lasting life. this use to offend me which meant that I was causing myself suffering. I have since learned how to just let it go and now it doesn't bother when he says stuff like that. Those are his beliefs. My beliefs are different, but I'm okay with his beliefs being different. I don't try to change his beliefs. That is something else I've been trying to practice is not having expectations. I am learning to just accept my father for who he is and not have unrealistic expectations about his beliefs. This too has alleviated some of my suffering.

[RagAss]

2. There are as many forms of Buddhism as there are Buddhists.

[liberal_at_heart]

3. Yes but just like any religion Buddhism has its basic tenants

No matter what form of Buddhism someone belongs to there is always the Four Noble Truths of suffering and they use The Eightfold Path to alleviate suffering.

[RagAss]

5. The pure Zen has no doctrine.

[cntrfthrs]

4. ...

this just shows how much people in this country know about buddhism....Buddhism is NOT a religion with a god one runs to on sundays to get your sins forgiven so you can go out and sin again for the other 6 days... ...it is a philosophy....forgiveness comes from within oneself not from without...this from my wife who was a student for 7 years under Mizumi Roshi, founder of the Los Angeles Zen Center...

[Bill McBlueState]

7. "Buddhism is NOT a religion with a god one runs to on sundays..."

Who thinks that it is?

[spanone]

6. mr hume greatly demonstrated the arrogance of religion...'mine is better than yours'